Islands in the sun
Gordon Amos belatedly acquires a taste for ocean cruising, which has changed his holiday thinking
My earliest memory of ocean liners is sailing home to South Africa with the 1951-52 rugby Springboks, who had cut a green-and-gold swathe through the British Isles and France, hammering Scotland, where I was born, 44-0 along the way.
I remember, pretty vaguely, as I was six, these big men – huge to my eyes – diving or jumping from the ship at Madeira for the silver coins thrown down to the young islanders in tiny boats. And my mum told me that at the fancy dress party she saw prop Okey Geffin, dressed in a nappy made from a bath towel and holding a whisky bottle with a teat on the end, being pushed along in a pram by lock Gert Dannhauser dressed as a child’s nurse. The Boks, she said, were great fun.
One of them, Free State hooker Piet Wessels, 14 years later became my first news editor on The Friend newspaper in Bloemfontein. He was still a big man and I took him very seriously when he threatened to “make strawberry jam” of me for being cheeky.
I also remember when I was 11 and travelling to England via the intermediate route, going ashore with my parents at St Helena. We met a very old Afrikaans man with a long grey beard who insisted on taking us to his modest home to show us the flush toilet, the first or only one on the island, I can’t remember which.
He had been captured by the British as a teenager on commando during the Anglo-Boer War and shipped to the island with some other prisoners. He had married a local girl and decided to stay on when the war ended as he refused to live under the rooinekke. He had enjoyed a very satisfying life, he said, never regretting not going home.
Nice early memories, none which prepared me for la dolce vita on my next ocean jaunt all of 52 years later – a two-week cruise of the Indian Ocean islands on the beautiful Italian liner Costa Europa that took in Mauritius, the Seychelles, Mombasa, Madagascar and Reunion and which turned out to be a holiday of a lifetime.
The price of the Jewels of the Indian Ocean cruise -- R16 820 each for an outside cabin -- included return flights to Mauritius, from where the ship sailed, but not for excursions at destinations along the way, which turned out quite expensive as they were priced in euro.
However, some people opted to go it alone, bargaining along the way with taxi drivers, and with a bit more effort, saw plenty at far less cost. And, of course, there was the option of staying aboard and soaking up the sun at the pool.
We embarked the day before the Costa Europa sailed for Mahe, the largest island in the Seychelles – which was reached after almost two full days at sea.
After the pokey Union Castle Line dungeon-like cabins of my childhood, with double-decker bunks reminiscent of railway compartments, our cabin, a few sizes up from the basic one, came as a wonderful surprise – queen-size bed, couch and writing desk and room to swing any number of cats.
Much of the first day at sea was spent getting our bearings. With nine decks for the use of passengers, four restaurants, six bars, three swimming pools – one with a retractable roof – an outdoor jogging track, a fitness centre with gym, treatment rooms and sauna, two Jacuzzis, a theatre on two decks, a casino, disco, library and shopping centre, it was all a bit confusing, but exciting.
With roughly 1 400 passengers -- divided about equally into English, Italian, French and German speakers -- to cater for, dinner is divided into two sittings. We had indicated a preference for the early sitting (from 6.45pm) and that we would like to share a table with two or more couples rather than be on our own. I was cautioned to be on my best behaviour and we sallied forth that first night hopeful of convivial company.
We were fortunate that our table companions for the duration were an amiable Polish-South African couple who had fled communism with their infant son and a Johannesburg art dealer and his wife, with whom we became firm friends, attending the very professional evening variety shows together and teaming up on some excursions.
At each destination there were numerous excursions from which to choose and although they ranged in price from 56 to 184 euro, each had their attractions. Before each landfall, the passengers could attend briefings in English, Italian, French, German and Spanish, with those by Professor Richard Wunsch, a retired Costa Line tour director, packing the theatre once word of his good-humoured insights into what we could experience next got around.
The first afternoon in Victoria, capital of the Seychelles, we walked to the centre of the typically Creole town with its blend of races and cultures, stopping at the colourful market and the rather disappointing national museum before visiting the botanical gardens, which have an abundance of indigenous and imported trees, including the coco de mer, which is endemic to the islands of Praslin and Curieuse, and an enclosure of giant tortoises. The upper part of the gardens is a small rain forest supporting diverse plants and a colony of fruit bats that, unlike most species, are active during the day.
The next morning we boarded a catamaran for a safari to the St Anne Marine Park (90 euro) and snorkelled in the warm, sparkling clear water alongside a coral reef with an abundance of fish. We even spotted a huge manta ray wallowing on the surface.
The Seychelles government is very focused on eco-tourism and you will find no Costa del Sol-type cheap package holidays here. Prices are high to keep out the riff-raff.
From the Seychelles we headed for Mombasa, with two full days at sea in which to relax and read, eat and sleep, with the accent on the eating. Shipboard life had settled into a routine of breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, 10pm pizzas and midnight snacks for the gourmands among us – and there were many. So it is perhaps appropriate to get culinary here as our Italian hosts kept us as happy as clams with one fine meal after another.
Dinner was typically a choice of three starters, three soups, two pasta dishes, four meat dishes, a salad, three desserts, cheese and biscuits and coffee. You could have had them all if you wanted to but even the most dedicated trenchermen slowed down after a couple of days. It was either that or pop.
All meals could be taken in the main dining room but most people preferred the lavish breakfast and lunch buffets in the restaurants adjoining the main swimming pools – the third one is for children -- or to have hamburgers and chips and soft-serve ice cream right next to the pool.
Mombasa was all hustle and bustle and Africa, and as South Africans with the Kruger Park on our doorstep, we gave the Tsavo East National Park a miss, opting for the 94 euro excursion that included a trip through the old town to Fort Jesus, whose construction was begun in 1593 by the Portuguese, and a first-class buffet meal in the cool open dining room at the Sarova Whitesands Beach Resort and Spa Hotel. There were camel rides on the beach and aqua sports on offer, but we spent most of the afternoon in one or other of the pools.
Our next scheduled stop after a day at sea was Nosy Be Island, off the top of Madagascar. With rain forests, palm trees and bougainvillea abounding, it is the country’s leading tourist destination.
However, with political strife wracking Madagascar, there was no certainty that we would visit any of the three planned destinations. The previous cruise had been obliged to give the world’s fourth-largest island a miss, causing much unhappiness among the passengers. This was compounded by the Costa Europa having engine trouble and languishing an extra few days in Mombasa while an engineer was flown in from Europe to fix it.
We, however, had no such problems. Nosy Be’s only main town and port, Hell-Ville – named after a French governor of the island, Admiral de Hell – is poor but crowded and exciting, with ancient little Citroens bouncing along the potholed roads past the ruins of what must have been splendid French colonial mansions and government buildings. A long period of socialism has left Madagascar among the poorest of the poor countries, with virtually no infrastructure.
In an adventurous mood, and after having been warned that “this excursion is dedicated to the most active visitors”, we had opted for what was one of the more memorable experiences of the cruise – trekking in the Lokobe Nature Reserve (76.50 euro).
After being driven to a small fishing village past a ylang-ylang plantation (the tree’s flowers have a delicate aroma and these are processed for use in creating high-quality perfume), we picked our way around low-tide mangroves to little outrigger canoes. We were handed paddles but the guides were just kidding us as the canoes were linked by rope to a lead canoe powered by a small outboard motor and the convoy pulled across a beautiful unspoilt bay to a tiny beach-front village that could only be accessed by sea.
Here a guide led us into the dense rain forest where we slipped and slid up and down an almost non-existent trail under a dark, steaming-hot canopy of trees. Alerted every now and then by our guide, we encountered chameleons frozen in mid-motion, different species of adorable-looking lemurs peering silently down at us and large and small boa constrictors wrapped around branches.
Back at the beach we were fed prawns, grilled fish and papaya before making the return trip to where we had left the tour bus. By then the tide had come in so we landed right at the village.
Our next stop in Madagascar was Diego Suarez (officially Antsiranana), situated on a magnificent bay. This was a real lazy day as we were collected from the ship by a small motor boat and deposited on Orangia Beach (a 99 euro excursion), where we were met by friendly folk bearing coconuts whose tops had been sliced off and straws inserted. The milk was cool and refreshing and once more it was la dolce vita as we lolled in the tideless sea serenaded by local musicians and later devoured giant steamed crabs and fish kebabs with rice and finished with slices of papaya.
On our way back to the ship – white and majestic at anchor in the bay – in minibuses, we again passed many ruins of French-style mansions that stood in sharp contrast to the rudimentary shacks, providing glimpses of past splendour.
Down at the harbour, the ship’s large motor tenders, lowered whenever we anchored offshore, were ferrying the people from the various excursions back to our temporary home. It had been a wonderful day in the sun.
The last port of call in Madagascar was Tamatave, where we visited the market – not for the squeamish, with fly-covered meat and live chickens, tied cruelly together, flapping on the floor.
But we were soon on our way, over some atrocious roads to a national parks research station, whose main attraction is the reserve where all 13 species of lemurs reside, some in large cages and some running wild. We stopped feeling sorry for the caged ones when we realised many of the “wild” ones were trying to get in!
After a full day at sea we docked in Reunion and opted to visit the capital, St Denis (52 euro), where we began with a walk through the pristine streets of the town, viewing examples of the architecture, including the beautiful large houses that were the town dwellings of the plantation owners, and visited a spotless market that was in sharp contrast to those on Madagascar.
The island, as an overseas departement, is an integral part of France and is heavily subsidised as it is not self-sufficient. None of your Madagascar poverty and squalour here. St Denis has many sophisticated shops and restaurants – with Paris prices to match.
Our voyage was almost complete. From Reunion to Mauritius, where our journey had begun, is an overnight hop and the only jarring note was the announcement that we would have to vacate our cabins at 4am for them to be made ready for the next lot of passengers. This time the voyage would be up the east coast of Africa – braving the pirates -- through the Suez Canal to the port of Genoa as the season had ended and the liner was heading home.
As most of us were only flying home after lunch or even later, the early-morning rousting provoked muted threats of mutiny but a few words to our Filipino cabin steward who, like our Indian waiters at dinner, was ever-helpful and efficient, resulted in an extra two hours’ sleep for us.
As we had arrived, so would we depart for the airport by taxi as part of the package, but that left plenty of time for a short ferry ride to Port Louis and its bustling market -- which would have whetted our appetite for a holiday in Mauritius if we hadn’t already set our hearts on the next cruise.
The Costa Europa will be replaced by the slightly larger Costa Romantica for the new season’s cruising in the Indian Ocean, which starts on ---?
IF YOU GO
South African citizens require a visa for Madagascar, which can be purchased on board
Yellow Fever inoculations are compulsory and anti-malaria measures are recommended for visits to Mombasa and Madagascar
Don’t forget your shampoo. We did and the shop, which sold all manner of expensive toiletries and perfumes, couldn’t help us out
No money changes hands aboard ship so you will use your Costa card and sign for all your drinks (payable in euro and for which there is a surcharge) and excursions and pay the final amount by credit card or cash at the end of the trip
Pack your finery if you would like to dress up for the three captain’s gala dinners, which are fun occasions
There is a surcharge in lieu of tipping the staff who have looked after you, but no one will stop you thanking them personally if you received first-rate service
Take a good book. There are plenty of places to be found between stops for some quiet time
As well as the discotheque, there is live music and dancing from rock ‘n roll to the tango and waltz in the various lounges, so brush up on your moves. If strutting your stuff is not your style, relax in one of the lounges to the sounds of a classical pianist accompanied by a violinist, or a jazz man tickling the ivories
The Squok Club caters for children aged three and up. When we wandered in for a look one day they seemed to be having a ball, parents forgotten.
